Topics - GendoIkari

Something in the projects list thread made me realize something; the change in shuffle rule between first edition and second edition matters for Star Chart. Given that Stash got updated wording to make it work the same as it did in first edition, is Star Chart the first time when the shuffle rule matters? I can't think of any other card off the top of my head where the difference means anything.

I'm guessing I'm not the only long-time Dominion player who still plays by the old shuffle rule when playing IRL. I wonder if this will be an issue if I end up playing a game with Star Chart. In practice, it will rarely matter. But still, I find it bothering that because of Star Chart, the new shuffle rule can no longer be seen as purely a matter of better tracking/convenience, but is now something that has an actual rules impact.

#7 Reposting an already-posted list to put it into a different order that you prefer.

Clearly the worst way to do a best cards list. No one should ever do this.

#6 Listing all cards in a completely random order, all within one post.

Although it has the advantage of not (usually) immediately spoiling either the best or the worst card for people reading the list, it makes it really difficult to compare cards for the purposes of discussion.

#5 Posting the cards all within one thread, but broken into several posts, with the best card first.

Having all cards in the same thread make it harder to load that thread; especially from a mobile device. It also makes it harder to follow discussions about a specific card. On the other hand, it makes it so that you can see all the discussion at once without opening multiple threads.

#4 Posting the cards all within one thread, but broken into several posts, with the worst card first.

Has all the same advantages and disadvantages of the all-one-thread system of #4, but has the advantage of being a "countdown" style, building up to the best card.

#3 A separate thread for each partial list (limited to 50 cards or so), ordered from worst card to best card, posted so that the best cards list comes out first.

Once the entire list is out, this is indistinguishable from the #1 way. But it's not a good user experience in the meantime; the order of the lists themselves is inconsistent with the order of the cards in the list.

#2 A separate thread for each partial list (limited to 50 cards or so), ordered from best card to worst card, posted so that the best cards list comes out first.

Similar to the #3 way, but has the advantage of being consistent with itself.

#1 A separate thread for each partial list (limited to 50 cards or so), ordered from worst card to best card, posted so that the best cards list comes out last.

This is the way the majority of The Dominion Cards Lists have worked. Some people voted it last, but many people voted it first.

Chris is me: Itís taken the greater Dominion community quite a while to catch on to the rather simple idea that doubling the amount of turns you take is really, really good. Outpost is one of the biggest winners on this list, rocketing up 25 spots! Given some way to improve your deck reliability (thinning or sifting, really), itís basically just trading an Action for an entire turn. Even if you whiff once or twice, you just burned one Action on a potential extra turn. My rule of thumb is to buy it a shuffle earlier than I think I should.

tracer: Outpost has possibly the most exotic effect in the game (Possession currently doesnít exist in most peopleís worlds) and for that effect should be higher despite its drawbacks. It is the most important card on far too many boards to be so low.

Chris is me: Old Witch is a bit better than it is rated here, I think. The thing about Old Witch is that it recognizes that Cursing attacks are already (usually) temporary. The long-term drawing potential of +3 Cards makes up for the drawback of sometimes letting the opponent trash a curse, and in my opinion itís often better for an engine than Witch. That extra card draw is really nice.

tracer: One of the large risers on this list, Horn of Plenty is one of the best gainers around. Given some amount of draw there is usually a way to make it able to gain Provinces, and before that big turn it will non-terminally gain all the things needed to make it happen.

xyrix: Personally I always find beating someone who has 7 Provinces by buying 8 Estates very satisfying, but ďmost satisfyingĒ is only one dimension of ďbetterĒ. Groundskeeper is hard to rate because itís both staggeringly powerful at the top end and often crushingly slow.

tracer: Groundskeeper is super dependent on having draw or very good thinning, but with draw is usually essential. It may be slow to set up but can score a lot quickly when needed and is so much better for a deck than victory cards.

xyrix: Knights have gone from underrated from pure gentility dissuading their purchase, to probably overrated as people are often too eager to buy the top Knight even when itís bad. A lot of the Knights are bad! There is an absolute chasm between Bailey and Jo.

Chris is me: Even so, losing the Knight split can be a major disadvantage, as it essentially puts a timer on how long your deck will keep working while components are sapped away.

tracer: Although dropping seven spots, Avanto still seems high for what it is. With Sauna often questionable as a gain, Avanto is not available in many games and even when it is, a simple +3 cards that helps Saunas not be terrible does not compare favorably to the more exotic effects of the closely ranked cards.

Chris is me: Cost reduction without taking up any terminal space is still uniquely powerful, and extra gains to exploit Highway with are more common than ever. The card will never be useful on absolutely every board, as it is completely dependent on extra gains, but it doesnít take much for the Highway split to be game-deciding. Bridge Troll offers stiff competition lately, as even though it is terminal, the Duration effect means it doesnít take as much terminal space.

Chris is me: Draw and Actions together in one gain and one card are always going to be useful. Dominion may offer many other ways to build an engine, but few are as gain-efficient as Lost City, and the on-gain penalty is really no big deal compared to the utility of the card. Itís a bit too vanilla of a card to get any higher on this list, but itís simple and effective.

tracer: A big loser along with the similar Junk Dealer, as a trasher Upgrade similarly suffers from being expensive and somewhat slow. Contrasting with Junk Dealer, Upgrade is typically worse for your deck early as it does not allow expensive buys but can be more useful later gaining components or points.

xyrix: Counterfeit is better than Upgrade and at least the list reflects that now. Maybe next year itíll also pass Junk Dealer. Itís a nice tempo trasher that gives +Buy and can continue to be useful throughout the whole game. Notably, if you take more Silvers in the opening than youíd otherwise like because you need to get to Counterfeit, it provides a nice way to get rid of them later.

xyrix: Bridge Troll is unique in that with only a village you can do an 8 Province megaturn even without any draw on the board. Granted, itís not very likely if you donít also have trashing but it is possible. Anyways, cost reduction is broken, Bridge Troll gives you the +Buy you need to exploit that and itís much easier on your terminal space and draw than Bridge is. The attack even hurts a decent amount if your opponent tries to go for some sort of money strategy.

tracer: The finest non-terminal draw card Dominion has to offer stays appropriately high year after year. Early on Hunting Party makes you see your key cards more often, and later it helps to keep turns going by picking out what is lacking in your hand.

Chris is me: Junk Dealer has plummeted from the Top 10, and honestly the main fault I can find in J-Dizzle is that thereís so much competition for great $5 costs, especially trashers. It is still an excellent trasher that conserves tempo with the economy boost it gives on-play. It is the first trasher on this list that eventually reaches a point where you can no longer play it, though, and perhaps that is Junk Dealerís undoing versus cards like Sentry and Recruiter. $5 gain opportunities are really valuable in fast paced, high level play, so it makes sense that JD, while still a great trasher, loses out to cards with more staying power throughout the game.

xyrix: Iím glad we can close the book on the dark year where Junk Dealer was ranked as the #2 $5 cost. Itís killer off the 5/2 opening but otherwise you often need 2Ė3 to get clean in a reasonable timeframe, which is just too slow to justify passing up good trashers at the sub-$5 cost level.

Chris is me: Vampire was quite underrated last year for all it accomplishes in one set of cards - trashing, gaining, attacking. But perhaps there has been a bit of an overcorrection here, as evidenced by its higher unweighted ranking. In very high-tempo games, Vampire ends up being a bit slow, especially if you have to rely on Bat as your primary trashing. Itís an extremely effective card in many decks, but itís important to acknowledge this slight limitation.

xyrix: If Bat is the only trashing, then you probably arenít in a very high-tempo game. I like Vampire a lot, a non-terminal $5 gainer with an attack is just crazy. The Bat does slow it down a bit but I think a top-10 position would be justified.

tracer: After a significant rise last year, Butcher stayed put in these rankings this year although I would argue it should be higher. Few cards provide the versatility that Butcher does: it fits into nearly any deck and provides utility throughout the entire game. Not gaining Butcher is considered a nearly automatic loss in high-level play, and the unweighted ranking 5 below the weighted one seems to show that this idea has not caught on at the lower levels.

xyrix: Witch is the first card on this list to not just absolutely beat you over the head with how obviously good it is. There just arenít that many cards that unconditionally hand out Curses. Itís fallen in the rankings a significant amount as trashing continues to get stronger and could probably stand to fall a bit more. Itís a good card but if something is a top 10 $5 cost I should at least be excited to buy it more often than not.

xyrix: Attacks that draw cards are the big winners of this yearís $5 cost list, perhaps on the heels of the addition of Villagers to the game, and Ghost Ship sees the biggest rise. Unlike Torturer, a single Ghost Ship can effectively shut an unprepared opponent out of the game, so thereís an argument that the Ship could rise even higher.

Chris is me: As an attack, when Ghost Ship is good, itís as paralyzing and crippling as they come. With the right components on the board (mostly trashing) it is relatively easy to play against, but in the right conditions this attackís ceiling is sky high.

tracer: Terminal draw cards that happen to do something bad to your opponent are easy to like, and Torturerís high ranking reflects this. While often frustrating to play against when played in multiples, compared to similar cards below it Torturerís attack lacks some potency in the presence of trashing and is generally weaker when terminal space is very limited.

Chris is me: Margrave has been steadily climbing the ranks over the years. The combination of draw and +Buy alone is already quite potent and powerful (see: Wharf), but the addition of a handsize attack lets Margrave accomplish so much in the space of just one terminal Action. That kind of functional density is really hard to beat. Of the many, many options for $5 ďSmithy-plusĒ cards, Margrave accomplishes more than any of them. The slight nerf of the attack with repeated use can be a bummer, but itís not enough to keep this card out of the top 10.

Chris is me: While there are arguably better $5 trashers, Sentry is unique in being both an excellent low-risk trasher with a good chance of trashing multiple cards, while also being a good mid to late game utility card. Sentry has no negative effects on your tempo / economy the turn you play it, without being as fuckle as other top-of-deck trashers like Lookout or Doctor. It loses to Recruiter in its lack of immediate benefit to your turn and struggles with trashing the last couple junk cards in your deck.

tracer: I expect Recruiter to rise 4 spots next year to #1. It is one of very few cards that can claim to help you be faster in multiple ways, being great both as a trasher and as a village. While it may not define a board as much as those cards above it, it helps tremendously with anything you want to play.

Chris is me: Recruiter is the best tempo card in Dominion; itís somehow underrated despite debuting at #5. Itís a Masquerade thatís also a source of +Actions! Villagers are most valuable early on when your deck otherwise lacks consistency, and Recruiter provides an abundance of them.

xyrix: Given how new cards are generally severely underrated in these rankings, Recruiter ending up at #5 is effectively a statement that itís the #1 $5 cost to me.

xyrix: Governor is perhaps unfairly penalized for not being as strong without support as Mountebank and Cultist; as one of the best non-terminal cards it is rarely ignorable. Even on boards where another method of gaining Provinces is faster (e.g. Horn of Plenty), Governors offer very strong draw on the final turn.

xyrix: While Mountebank remains a consistent threat to your opponentís deck, Cultist threatens to send out 10 junk cards at unparalleled speed. Its ability to serve as moderately strong draw makes Cultist important on many boards where junkers would otherwise be ignored.

tracer: Along with Cultist one of the cards that can blow up an otherwise nice board, Mountebank certainly deserves its high ranking. That said, I would have it below Cultist since draw tends to be more valuable than terminal coin once you are cleaned up a bit, which has become easier to do the way the game is played today.

Chris is me: Wharf ends up on top once again in the rankings, as the consistency and reliability of start-of-turn draw is incredibly valuable for consistency. While newer cards like Den Of Sin cut into Wharfís niche somewhat, the combination of draw on the turn you play it and the +Buys make Wharf a card that improves basically any deck. As more and more methods for dealing with the harshest of junking attacks pop up, Wharfís more consistent value keeps it on top.

tracer:Wharf is amazing but shouldnít be #1 because it has this problem where other cards are more essential to not losing.

One thing that stands out to me is that Donald doesn't mention Duration cards in regards to Empires, Nocturne, or Renaissance. I guess the idea was that Adventure's "Duration cards return" was meant as "starting with Adventures, Duration cards became part of every set". But that's not clear; if I didn't know otherwise, I would have thought that Durations only existed in Seaside and Adventures.

Anyway, even though I mostly only ever played full random, thus don't think too much about which cards are even part of which sets, I agree with the "someone else" that Seaside and Prosperity are my favorites.

xyrix: Soothsayer gives you a Gold and your opponent a Curse. Sometimes there is a huge difference in utility between Gold and Curse and sometimes there isnít.

tracer: Seeing Soothsayer fall so far is satisfying - maybe the unweighted ranking will catch up next year. The card it draws your opponent means that it pretty commonly gives them more pace than it gives you.

xyrix: Scepter is some sort of unholy union of Royal Carriage and Crown which combines the drawbacks of each. There are occasionally more creative ways to use it but mostly itís an expensive Throne Room which you can only use on payload. Sometimes you get it anyways though because Throne Room is a really good card.

Chris is me: I think the potential of Scepter isnít fully realized yet. That doesnít mean itís actually an amazing card, but thereís some situations where a board might otherwise be uninspired but for Scepter letting you get a bunch more payload plays in without consuming Actions.

tracer: Scepter really is terrible and super limited in use. It should and will see a pretty big drop next year.

tracer: Bustling Village has a great effect on play and despite being the bottom card of a split pile is seen fairly often due to the non-offensiveness of Settlers. If anything is holding its ranking down, it should be that for consistency purposes +3 actions is often in excess: for the number of villages needed to have one at the start of a turn, +2 actions would be sufficient.

Chris is me: Legionaryís discard attack is downright vicious, but itís held back from being a top tier attack by how damn long it takes to get set up. Consistently lining it up with Gold is not easy, and by the time you pull that off, youíve both probably reached a point where a 2 card hand is at least not an automatic dud. If you get an early lead Legionary can downright bury an opponent, kinda like Ghost Ship does, but less so.

Chris is me: Bandit Camp offers strong economyÖ sorta, at the cost of cycling later. It cancels out to a card thatís a little better than Festival, really. Those Spoils can really get in the way if you have to stack a lot of these, but they can also let you avoid investing in other economy if you have a consistent enough deck. Definitely a middle of the pack card.

tracer: Relic is a fairly strong attack against any deck which is easy to play and should probably be higher than this. A consistent -card token against a money strategy is brutal while against engines it has the potential to force unfortunate duds.

xyrix: In my opinion the best Workshop variant, Sculptor is a valuable addition to any deck. The ability to gain the needed card to hand is strong on its own; the additional facilitation of this ability from a stored Villager really puts Sculptor over the top as an excellent card. Even on boards where the options at $4 or less are limited, Sculptorís Silver gain helps ensure that the $5+ price point continues to be hit. Severely underrated.

xyrix: Tactician is good at two things: spiking big price points (which usually isnít important) and playing Double-Tac. Double-Tac is a lot of fun but it is often a struggle to get to double-Province turns just from non-Treasure payload. Innovation-Tactician is a new combo which is worth being aware of.

tracer: Tactician deserves this drop. It turns out that 2 good turns are usually better than one mediocre one and one great one with what a good turn means now.

tracer: Artificer is another card much lower in the unweighted rankings than the weighted ones. This is probably a result of Artificer being more able to be taken advantage of in better decks with massive amounts of draw, where it can be an effective gainer. Topdecking even allows saving turns with whatever component is needed.

Chris is me: Another awkward card that rewards you if you can handle its quirkiness, Tragic Hero is somewhere between a draw-to-x card and a weird way to cycle and pop some payload into your deck at once. When you canít have good control over its effect, it can be very tricky to work with, but 3 cards and 1 buy is too strong to pass up most of the time.

xyrix: Tragic Hero is amazing (especially if thereís a Treasure better than Gold on the board) and Iím very happy it took a huge jump this year.

Chris is me: Archive is a really flexible way to deal with any imperfect Dominion board - shrinking your deck without trashing, increasing handsize without really drawing, etc. It will always have that ceiling of just not being very good on those really thin boards, but those are far less common than people think.

xyrix: Iím surprised to find Archive this low; I think itís stronger than the non-attacking Smithy variants. Unless there is very strong trashing, itís usually the first draw card Iíll buy.

tracer: Eight spots lower in the unweighted ranking, Forum should be higher than its weighted ranking puts it. Forum is easy to gain and since it filters without decreasing handsize is good at enabling engines without draw while still being a great consistency measure when draw is present.

xyrix: Gaining more Smithies that you need so that you can dole out a weakish attack is not usually a great move, so Werewolf is arguably the most vanilla of the Smithy variants. I think itís significantly overrated.

Chris is me: The one thing worth noting about Werewolf is that if the opportunity cost to gain them isnít too high, playing multiple nonterminal Hexes a turn can actually start to hurt a little. Itís also nice to be rewarded for being responsible and not triggering a bad shuffle. But it really doesnít do a whole lot more than Smithy most of the time.

xyrix: Journeyman shines on boards where you have Estate trashing but not Copper trashing or vice-versa. Its ability to skip payload cards can also be important. However, its sifting ability often declines in power significantly upon greening, so I think it is somewhat overrated still.

tracer: Patrol seems to go less appreciated by weaker players with an unweighted ranking 10 spots below the weighted one. Of the non-attacking terminal draw cards at $5, I think Patrol is a clear third behind Wharf and Wild Hunt due to the reordering ability and so should be relatively higher on this list.

Chris is me: What people donít really internalize about the reordering ability is that, assuming a drawing Village is used, you get seven cards to find your next Patrol (by reordering it onto the top). This is huge for reliability, and way better than like, getting a Coffer when you draw after having whiffed the previous turn.

xyrix: Itís important to remember that the reordering only really benefits you if you started your turn with a village and a Patrol in hand already. Itís a little bit of added reliability but it isnít nearly as good as duration draw at ensuring you can kick off every turn.

Chris is me: +3 Cards and also another thing is cool, but itís actually reasonably hard to activate Swashbuckler. The Gold thing is really a gimmick, and the Coffers are just some nice candy on top of what is otherwise a perfectly normal draw card. Iím very surprised it got the nod over Patrol and Journeyman.

xyrix: I like Swashbuckler a lot, I think itís usually worth building your deck a little bit differently (adding an extra Cellar or Workshop, say) so that you can activate it. The Treasure Chest is better than it looks since you always have the possibility to get Swashbucklers to draw that Gold.

Chris is me: There is an odd degree of consensus on the ranking of this very strange card, but I think it is slightly underrated. Sometimes it just makes your payload nonterminal, but other times it enables all sorts of craziness that just wouldnít be possible without something that so fundamentally bends all the rules. It can really be a $5 Champion sometimes, or it can breathe life into interesting-but-weaker cards like Navigator.

tracer: How exotic this project is probably has it placed higher than it deserves. There are some instances where it is obvious to use, but it rarely helps decks work that otherwise wouldnít.

tracer: Plunderís most important use is probably keeping Encampments at a price less than that of Gold, although in similar strength decks the additional points from having extra Plunders can be important. I would consider this rise unwarranted, though you donít want to be losing the split by more than one.

Chris is me: This probably speaks to my scrub-like playing tendencies more than anything but I really value those extra points from the Plunder split. In drawn-out games it can absolutely decide the match.

xyrix: Fleet is a tricky card to rank. It functions effectively as alt-VP, but unlike other alt-VP sources it canít be used to claw back from a serious deficit (unless perhaps your opponent blunders and skips Fleet). Itís a must-buy in a close game, but overall I havenít found it to change the outcome of the game all that often.

Chris is me: Much like City above, the main thing Fleet actually does is make your head hurt, as all your pileout math goes out the window. You basically buy it around when you would get your first Duchy, as it is really rare that you will score less than 3 points on that last turn. More than anything its insurance against your opponent pulling a fast one on you and executing some elaborate pileout where they win with their one Estate or something.

xyrix: Catacombs is ranked as the best ďSmithy + reliability.Ē In comparison with Patrol, it offers additional sifting vs. Patrolís additional draw and topdeck ordering. The on-trash benefit is easy to ignore but has some combos (Procession, Lurker).

tracer: Catacombs being ranked so differently from the similar cards (Journeyman, Patrol) is bizarre.

tracer: Swamp Hag feels low, but it is difficult to see it much higher, which speaks to the strength of the upper tier of 5 cost cards. Being able to play Swamp Hags consistently can make using multiple or even any buys awkward, which can lead to drawn out games as players try to avoid taking curses.

Chris is me: There are more boards than ever with quick pile runs, so you would think City has more merit than it does, but it still suffers from the fundamental problem of delayed payoff combined with the first-mover disadvantage caused by being the player to empty a pile at the end of a turn. It definitely warps the game a lot more than other cards on this list just on how it changes behavior on that second pile draining.

Chris is me: Rabbleís attack can occasionally really, but more than anything its place here on the list is because it draws three cards for you. Thatís always nice. I really donít think itís better than Patrol, which has essentially double the search space for added reliability, but whatever.

tracer: Bazaar is a village and villages always have a place towards the high end of these rankings. In particular, Bazaar is valuable for providing coin that doesnít require additional draw, which means higher than usual consistency for the large amount of buying power decks with Bazaar typically have.

xyrix: The strength of Spices was one of the biggest surprises for many people as they began to figure out the Renaissance cards. It has a lot going for it, but to me one of its best attributes is its elegant solution to the ď$11 Herbalist problem:Ē it lets you add a non-terminal +Buy to your deck while saving some of the excess money you might have had that prompted the addition of a +Buy to your deck. Itís hard for me to say that it should continue to rise further, but itís earned this relatively lofty position among non-attack payload cards.

tracer: Spices has started way overrated. It performs well in money and at the ends of games but other +buy is still most often preferable.

xyrix: lol Rebuild. Itís managed a precipitous drop in the rankings as people realize that good money decks can beat Rebuild almost as well as engines. It could still stand to fall another 50 or so slots.

Chris is me: Rebuild is a relic of the past. Thereís almost always either something faster possible or other ways to score points that make its ability to melt Duchy less scary.

tracer: Replace mysteriously drops from an already too low position. It is the second strongest card of the Remodel family behind Butcher and almost always features prominently in games where it is present, both for the cursing attack and the ability of topdecking to continue the current turn or better future ones.

Chris is me: Topdecking remains the most undervalued ability in Dominion, and Replaceís ability really improves early game deck tempo by a lot. Those Curses can be essential in pileout victories as well.

Chris is me: Treasurer has a lot of tricks for what might look like a $5 Moneylender at first glance. It offers strong economy throughout the whole game, with neat Treasure-recycling properties useful with trash-for-benefit, and I guess sometimes the Key matters a little bit. You can confidently grab it with your first $5 knowing that youíll definitely hit $5 again soon.

tracer: Treasurer deserves at least this ranking just because of how good Moneylender is. Key might be a bit overhyped.

Chris is me: Triumph is surging in rank for good reason; on any strong engine board it basically just gives the win to whomever ends the game. Tying points to card gains is a terrific way to score while building or to set up large scoring turns fully separate from the Province pile. Combine that with Triumphís utility in slogs or combos with things like Beggar, and you have a very useful scoring method on your hands. Weaker players continue to heavily undervalue Triumph, leading to a much lower weighted rank and standard deviation, and a lot of easy wins for top players.

tracer: Triumph is often bonkers but the number of boards where it is unimpressive is a bit too high for me to see it rising much further.

tracer: This is one of the larger jumps on this list and deservedly so. Storyteller is one of the strongest draw cards available, with decks able to be drawn with only a few plays. The only thing keeping it from being higher is a consistency issue, where the treasures which fuel its draw making it difficult to see Storytellers at the start of turn when they are needed.

xyrix: Summon is $5 for a one-shot Lost City effect and a card costing $4 or less. Sometimes thatís really good if you wanted the card anyways, other times Summoning as much as you can is a trap by comparison to buying some of the other wonderful $5 cost things on this list.

tracer:More often buying things for $5 rather than Summoning is the trap.

tracer: Hagglerís drop is curious to me as it is very strong. The ability to gain multiple engine components with one buy as well as continue to build through greening should put Haggler higher than this. Additionally, playing multiple Hagglers offers very strong pile control to give an edge in ability to end the game.

Chris is me: Haunted Woods, much like Enchantress, is a set-up-next-turn card with an attack that is only occasionally relevant. But thatís fine since setting up your next turn is great, and you really donít even need that many Haunted Woods plays to draw a substantial amount of your deck. Two pairs of HW is almost like double Tactician without all the hassle of not using any Treasures. Taking up terminal space while not immediately doing anything is really the main drawback of this card, and probably why it isnít rated much higher.

Chris is me: Lab is a card new players get very excited about before realizing using $5 gains on a handsize increase of 1 isnít always the best you can do, but itís still a dependable, reliable card, sort of the quintessential $5 cost card. With more ways to gain $5 cost cards in the past couple of expansions the opportunity cost for spamming Lab is getting lower, so it makes sense that itís being held in higher regard.

tracer: Like last year dropping in rank after large gains the years before, Countís main claim is as a trasher that can do something somewhat useful afterwards. However, it is often outclassed by more selective trashers that allow turns to be more productive afterwards, and the non-trashing benefits are often too weak to bother gaining Count if not for the trashing.

Chris is me: ďTrasher that isnít useless afterwardsĒ is a niche that Count is quickly losing, but itís still a neat little utility card. Thereís a bunch of tricks it can do that are useful when you need them, but ultimately I think itís falling due to its clunkiness.

xyrix: Stables is perennially underrated because people trash too many treasures and then are sad that they dud. Itís +3 Cards +1 Action, having to discard a Copper is a small price to pay to see your good cards! The combination of sifting and draw makes Stables very strong, and I think close to Hunting Party in power.

Chris is me: I mean itís clearly worse than Hunting Party, and Iím a little shocked it ended up above Lab, but the extra cycling in the early to mid game is really nice. Keeping Treasures around when you didnít otherwise want or need to can be really frustrating, but as long as youíre honest about the needs of a Stables deck it wonít let you down.

xyrix: I was one of the people who was initially underwhelmed by Den of Sin, but duration draw and gaining to hand are just so, so nice. Itís a pretty uncommon board where you donít want any.

Chris is me: Den of Sin is seriously underrated on this list. I think a lot of newer players think of it as like a weird Lab variant or something, but the important thing is start of turn draw is so much better than conventional draw! The gain to hand thing is just a bonus; the consistency it offers without even using terminal space is basically unmatched. Itís more comparable to Wharf than people want to admit.

xyrix: I donít think the gain to hand thing is ďjust a bonus:Ē without it Den would be worse than Caravan, and a $5 Caravan isnít sniffing the top half of this list.

tracer: Crown drops a number of spots and while the reason for this drop is unclear, I agree with it (although Royal Carriage should have dropped too). While powerful, Throne-variants suffer in decks where their village effect is unnecessary as a second copy of an engine component offers more consistency than attempting to double it.

xyrix: I have to disagree with tracer on this one; decks where the village effect is unnecessary are pretty rare. Usually Iím happy to buy as many Crowns as my deck can handle instead of villages and youíre happy to have that extra efficiency.

Chris is me: Probably my favorite card on this list, Cursed Village is probably the best Draw-To-X variant in the game. The fundamental issue with a lot of terminal draw-to-x is that you need to either have nonterminal payload or multiple Villages per draw so you can dump some of that terminal payload between draws. Cursed Village sidesteps all of that, all with only the small cost of an on-gain Hex that is usually a non-issue. On many boards, itís really just Lost City with a higher ceiling, though less flexible on boards with limited trashing or better draw.

Chris is me: Seer is a very interesting card, that is quite high variance - both in performance and in playersí opinions of it. Seerís unique ability to draw cards in that $2-$4 category of weaker engine components makes a lot of cards more viable than they otherwise would be. Seer usually requires the board to cater to it a little bit, but if conditions are right it is a fierce drawing card. Plus it makes Silver gainers really good.

tracer: Apprentice slides down a few slots and could probably stand to slide down a few more. As an early game trasher it is fairly slow and expensive with a weak benefit so compares unfavorably to other trashers. Apprentice is also difficult to use as draw later in the game as more expensive cards are often good enough that you donít want to trash them and they are hard to gain back.

xyrix: Iím really not sure what this is doing here above Crown; usually Iíd rather have a plain $5 Throne Room than a Royal Carriage. Not being able to play RC on RC is a crushing drawback, rendering all your RC-RC-Margrave hands sadly dead. OK you can save them between turns, which is occasionally useful, but then youíve bought a card that does nothing on half your turns.

tracer: I agree with having Royal Carriage above Crown. One of the major advantages of Royal Carriage is the ability to triple or quadruple actions given enough of them, which in decks that otherwise function is often better for both power and consistency.

xyrix: Minion plays badly with conventional draw cards and doesnít handle green very well, but at the end of the day it says +1 Action something something +4 Cards on it. Thatís pretty good. Also the attack is decently strong and can offer a potent psychological edge.

Chris is me: In general, Minion has been getting weaker and more awkward with time, but in the advent of Villagers things might start to turn around a little for this card, as itís that much easier to sneak in some other Action plays.

tracer: Wild Hunt remains one of the higher terminal draw cards on this list. Playing like a beneficial version of Torturer, stringing Wild Hunts together allows you to get points from the normal run of an engine, but when played in singles is fairly unimpressive.

I figure rather than complain about it, just get it done myself. I know that this will suck in certain ways of splitting discussion across different threads, but at least this will be here for people who want to see it this way.

Chris is me: Stash is a bad card in almost all circumstances. But really itís not at the bottom of the list because itís actually worse than Cache or Harvest or whatever. Itís because you really donít want to figure out the *optimal place for your Silvers* every time you shuffle. Thatís so weird to do! How can you really know, really. Was the multiple $5 gains worth the analysis paralysis? No, it was not.

Chris is me: Harvest is so boring. I just donít really have a lot to say, itís an uneventful card. It might get a little use in some draw your deck engines as payload, if it didnít require you to have a deck to get coin, but thereís shockingly few niches for this card.

tracer: Harvest is one of the few cards where having a board where it can be used is a big deal.

tracer: It is rare for decks to want to buy a Gold and this one comes with 2 Coppers, but there are a few cases where those Coppers can be dealt with easily. Cache has a strong claim to the last spot on this list, and I think possibly a better one than the two cards below it, although the distinction is not really meaningful.

xyrix: Counting House/Travelling Fair is gamebreaking and Counting House/Night Watchman is very strong. Otherwise, itís very very hard to find boards where Counting House is worth gaining: you generally need a lot of Coppers, a way to manipulate the position of your Counting House within the shuffle, and something better than a Province to spend your big hand of Coppers on.

xyrix: Mandarin/Capital is a thing. Mandarin/Horn of Plenty can also be a thing, although Iíve never seen it in the wild. Otherwise, there are situations where you might want a Mandarin but you donít want to deal with having your Treasures topdecked so you donít get one.

tracer: I would have liked to see Raid higher than this for being a more common buy than those cards surrounding it. Raid is often a decent buy in money strategies and is occasionally effective at expanding payload in engines with large amounts of draw, with a small attack too.

Chris is me: Hey, you can buy events and projects with this, so itís better than it used to be. Right? I mean, only kind of. It has +Buy so people will find ways to force it into decks it doesnít belong in (which is almost any deck, really). Man, Prosperity had a lot of duds for being such a lauded set.

tracer: Peopleís seemingly constant desire to use Contraband is amusing.

Chris is me: The one thing Iíll defend Royal Seal with is that topdecking is a huge control and momentum booster. But not as much of a boost that it offsets skipping a critical $5 early to get what amounts to another Silver.

tracer: Royal Seal is likely only this high due to its inoffensiveness, but I actually buy some of the cards below it.

tracer: Mine is occasionally buyable, which isnít saying much. Sometimes when it is the only trasher Mine can be better than doing nothing on that front, and frequent plays are sometimes the best way to build economy, but both of these cases are rare.

xyrix: Venture is better than Silver if youíre not drawing your deck. Thatís all it has going for it.

Chris is me: Dude Venture is awful. Venture is best in treasure heavy decks without much deck-drawing potential, where you also have extra buys to use all that money. This basically never happens. Venture is usually just a waste of a kingdom slot.

tracer: My co-writers are being a bit harsh here I think. Sure Venture is bad but it has more of a place in the thinned down money decks that are more common these days than say, Merchant Ship, which takes an action to use.

xyrix: I never even really consider Merchant Ship other than in decks with Tactician, City Quarter, or Kingís Court where you just really want Action payload of some sort. Even then itís not great with KC since your KC will just get stuck on the Merchant Ship. It could be ranked last and I wouldnít think that was particularly out of place.

tracer: Pillage is awful and probably should be lower. While the attack is often devastating, only being one-shot makes it difficult to spend a gain on without falling behind and the secondary effect of 2 Spoils is weak and slow as you only see them 2 shuffles after the initial buy.

Chris is me: Treasure gainers get a bit of a bad rap, and Explorer gaining to hand makes it so you can instantly use that Treasure as your TFB fuel or economy or whatever. The Province thing is kinda a distraction honestly, itís just nice to put Silvers in your hand sometimes? But you canít get it super early and it competes with a bunch of really good $5s for your attention. Still, itís skipped more than it ought to be. (ďSay the line, Chris!Ē) ďThey canít all be the best $5 everĒ.

tracer: Explorer is one of the better treasure gainers for engines since it doesnít require you to draw the gained card. This card is really underappreciated.

tracer: Mystic is appealing for its potential as a cantrip +2 coins, but is expensive and extremely inconsistent for this effect compared to Conspirator. The low ranking is appropriate, and the only thing stopping it from going lower is the exceptional terribleness of those cards below it.

xyrix: One of the weakest attacks in the game, Villain whiffs early on Estates and late on Provinces. In the midgame discarding a payload card can hurt but itís fairly rare for Villain to cause a dud. The +2 Coffers is nice but isnít enough of an improvement on +$2 to justify the $5 price.

xyrix: Duke is potentially one of the strongest alt-VP cards on boards where it is plausible to continually hit $5, since if the Duchy pile is uncontested 6Ė8 VP Dukes are very strong. The problem with Duke is that a competent opponent pursuing a non-Duke strategy will happily slow down to take 3Ė4 Duchies and then go on to win on Provinces.

tracer: While rising slightly, Rogueís placement is very low for such a unique effect. On many boards, Rogue allows for slow stealing of opponentís cards and can be a strong gainer in combination with trash-for-benefit. Comparing with the similar and also-lowly-ranked Graverobber, Rogue is easier to fit into a deck early due to the +2 coins.

Chris is me: If only Crypt gained to hand, it would be a lot more of a neat utility card. But for now, itís a really slow card, that you pick up in the kinds of games where you would really much rather have trashing, and because of that you have trouble lining it up with 3+ treasures at once in the first place.

xyrix: Crypt is a bit odd in that itís a draw card that only works if you have other draw cards, in which case do you really need the Crypt?

Chris is me: Weíre at the really boring part of the list now. Treasury doesnít actively harm you, but it doesnít do a lot to really help. Thereís a sorta narrow use case - where you hit $5, you need a consistent economy boost, youíre not drawing your deck, and the coin doesnít go to waste.

xyrix: I think Treasury is a little underrated. If the topdecking lets you see it twice in a shuffle where youíd otherwise only see it once, then youíve effectively bought two Peddlers for $5, which isnít a bad deal.

tracer: Graverobberís low placement on these lists has always been somewhat perplexing to me. While it shouldnít be above the components and power cards, with available actions Graverobber provides a fairly effective payload option being able to trash those components into points.

xyrix: Cartographer isnít bad in the way that some of the cards ranked above it are; most of the time you would be happy to receive free Cartographers. It just doesnít quite do enough to justify a higher ranking.

xyrix: Some people really hate Capital, seeing it as a big shiny +$6 that conceals its true identity as a bad card. I am not one of those people! Taking debt off of Capital plays is often a smart way to gain tempo by increasing your payload. It also has a fairly high number of combos (Mandarin, Crown, Counterfeit, Crypt, Herbalist) and is of course very good on the last turn of the game. Iím not sure why Capital fell so much but I think it will rise again eventually.

tracer: A terminal Gold gainer has its uses, but the attack on Bandit is mostly ignorable if against a competent opponent. Among treasure gainers, all of which correctly fall low on this list for their limited use, I would place Bandit last for being strictly terminal with a weak secondary effect and gaining to the discard pile.

Chris is me: Cobbler definitely has its problems and deserved to plummet from its surprisingly high rank before, but I think itís not quite this bad. Even though itís slow, itís a nonterminal gainer that can get you the component you need right now in your hand, so it comes in handy a lot. Often ignorable, but when itís not youíre glad you have it.

Chris is me: I feel kind of bad for Library. It really tries to make terminal draw to X work by letting you avoid wasting draw slots on payload youíre not ready to play. Problem is, when the key component of an already fickle strategy costs $5, itís just going to take so damn long to get it ready to go even if you do have all the support it needs. Villagers probably make it a bit better, but itís really rare that this is going to give you better draw performance than any other Smithy plus.

tracer: Like Trade, Treasure Trove has a reputation of enabling strong money strategies, but even strong money strategies are not strong enough most of the time. The Copper gains and buy phase gaining make Treasure trove problematic as payload expansion in engines, so its low rank is justified.

xyrix: Vault is a decent money enabler, and sometimes you are willing to buy a $5 Moat. You never really want a $5 Moat though, and I think Vault is a weaker money enabler than some of the cards below it, so it could stand to fall further.

xyrix: Windfall is in strong competition with Pooka as the most underrated thing on this list. Windfall adds a big infusion of payload to your deck at exactly the time you need it, letting you explode from what would otherwise be an overtrashed or overbuilt state. In my opinion if itís plausible to Windfall on a board, itís usually a mistake to not build towards it.

tracer: Windfall is really good for good decks, which might explain the slightly lower unweighted ranking as many of these players donít see very many good decks.

tracer: Giant rises after falling for two straight years. While slow, the attack is brutal and the high number of coins is not to be ignored when considering payload. That said, it is strange to have Rogue below it considering how much faster that attack can be without a mostly dead first play.

Chris is me: Occasionally thereís some cheap trasher you really donít wanna keep around that long, and then thereís also some other card you can harmlessly play this as later, and I guess you draw $5 instead of $4 and itís like ďsure Iíll take one of thoseĒ. But really itís just not that efficient most of the time. All of the good stuff is at the $5 price point, and if there are multiple cheap good options youíd rather focus your efforts on figuring out how to gain multiple cheap cards instead of one expensive clone.

Chris is me: Kind of similar to Wine Merchant, except with those Boons that really end up helping your opponent a lot more than you, particularly because they can decline those Boons. You really only get this card because itís got +Buy, but itís a bit of an awkward and inconsistent source for that.

tracer: Playing Sacred Groves before you have your deck drawn is an often effective way to get as much of the Boons as your opponent. Also pretty decent in money. Could be higher.

tracer: Jester is rarely a good buy. It tends to be weak as a junker and weak as a gainer without some sort of support, and being a terminal Silver is not enough to make you buy it for the secondary effect. The massive fall for the second straight year pleases me, and it could stand to drop even more next year.

xyrix: Do you need buys? Wine Merchant has a +Buy! +Buy is pretty underrated in card rankings so it makes sense that this is rising. The higher unweighted ranking might reflect that +$4 is a very shiny thing, but asymptotically approaching it by buying more Wine Merchants is often not smart.

xyrix: A big riser, Tormentor is one of the cards thatís helped the most by the presence of Villagers. The main issue with Tormentor is that Tormentors, Hexes, and Imps all see declining returns as you add more of them. However, the first Tormentor is usually a strong addition to the deck.

tracer: Iíll suggest that the second Tormentor is also usually a pretty strong addition. Stacking Hexes really hurts.

tracer: Mint looks great as a quick trasher with one buy able to thin a number of Coppers at once and then after this can increase payload either through treasure gaining or trash-for-benefit. Its rise is warranted but it is difficult to see it going much higher since drawing a bunch of treasures to trash early without having economic problems is difficult.

Chris is me: The novelty of nonterminal Cursing as long as you have some draw wore off really fast. This card is absolutely plummeting in the rankings, as the Boons are awkward to deal with if not outright harmful, and the Cursing just takes awhile to get going.

Chris is me Embassyís rapid fall is mostly consistent with the fall of terminal draw big money, which is all it was really ever good for. It has a large search space but frustratingly doesnít increase your handsize by much.

tracer: Embassy does slightly increase handsize, and given enough terminal space can be valuable as a supplement to other draw.

tracer: Trade sees a large fall after two years of rising. While useful in making some of the fastest money strategies, even those are usually not fast enough. Trade is difficult to incorporate into engines where you would much rather be rid of cards than have them become Silvers and $5 is usually better used for a component.

tracer: This slight rise is somewhat mysterious to me as I expected Ill-Gotten Gains to have a massive fall like the last 3 years, although space is running out to fall. Despite the classic strategy with IGG being a ďrush,Ē the junking is often somewhat slow and easy to overcome even without strong curse trashing.

Chris is me: I think now that coffers are less novel and rare, people are starting to get that Baker isnít all that amazing. Coffers are great, yeah, but I mean, if youíre just using them the same turn you get them youíre not getting as much value out of them as you should be. Token hoarding strategies require time to work that most decks just donít have anymore.

Chris is me: This feels too low, but Iíve been saying that the past couple of cards, so maybe there are just too many good $5ís. Anyhow throwing a ton of +Buy into your deck without making space for it is just really good, and it barely has any real cost at all as long as thereís a $4 you already wanted. One of the better pile control cards.

tracer: A big riser on this list, Emporiumís effect on play is fairly unimpressive as just a Peddler. However, the on-gain effect of +2 vp is significant later when looking to win the game and the cost plays nicely with Patrician, which must be out there for Emporium to be available.

xyrix: Pooka has risen but remains appallingly underrated. +4 Cards is good, trashing a Copper is good, certainly the combination is very good. In my opinion Pooka suffers in the rankings from its pairing with Cursed Gold, which causes builds to be generally much slower and more complicated. Additionally, the synergy between Pooka and Silver is often neglected. An early Silver helps ensure that the big hands off of a Pooka play can buy something nice, and prevents needing to play the Cursed Gold later to rebuild economy after the Coppers are thinned. You shouldnít be afraid of getting more Silvers than you usually would, as Pooka provides an excellent TFB option for them.

Chris is me: The trick to Pooka is accepting that you donít get to play other terminals for a couple of turns after you buy it early on, which makes its +4 cards less accelerating than it might seem. But as long as youíre aware of this and buy Silvers to take advantage of the big economy turns, itís adequate, I guess.

xyrix: On some boards Courtier is a very strong payload card, on others you buy it mostly to play it as Ruined Market. Usually youíre pairing it with a 2-type card and itís flexible but not amazing. Iím not feeling super inspired by its rise.

tracer: In its worst case Charm is a non-terminal +buy, but when used for gaining can act as +4 or +5 coins rather than +2, which provides massive pile control when in high quantity. For this reason, its rise this year seems justified and I could see it rising even more in years to come.

Chris is me: Ball was criminally underrated last time, so Iím glad to see it getting a bit more traction here. Itís not always worth writing home about, but smart application of Ball can lead to accelerated engine building or sneaky pileouts, particularly if you can manage to buy it more than once in a turn. The -Coin token is awkward early on but mostly ignorable later.

tracer: Ball should be higher than this. It is fairly common for 2 sub-5 costs to be more important to add to your deck than a 5 cost once you get going.

Chris is me: Market has +Buy. Thatís still good, right? Sure itís really boring, but economy and +Buy without taking up card or terminal space is neat, especially if youíve got cheap stuff to amass. On a lot of boards it remains pretty low impact, which isnít always what you want in a $5.

tracer: A friend for an engine player against someone who scores prematurely, when both players play correctly the delayed scoring of Distant Lands is often too slow. The split can be essential on boards with limited gains or unstable decks.

xyrix: Playing with Scholar makes one realize how valuable Libraryís sifting function is. Uh itís somewhat valuable, at least. I think that Scholar is a small but significant amount worse than Library and am confused as to how it ended up this far ahead of it. Neither is very strong in my opinion.

Chris is me: Scholar stacks a little more nicely than Library does. With Library if you have some Treasure youíre stuck with whatever you drew the first time; with Scholar you can re-roll if you want. I donít think it makes it That Much Better though?

xyrix: In Action-dense decks, Piazza offers some additional draw, Actions, and reliability. In Action-sparse decks, you can still get pretty lucky. The comparison of Piazza to Herald is somewhat overly flattering to Piazza as Herald is a card with strong self-synergy. I think itís pretty accurately ranked.

tracer: Providing a village, coins, and a buy, Festival gives everything you want except for a card. While I think this is not enough to justify such a low position relative to similar cards, it is certainly reasonable to have it towards the bottom of the villages.

Chris is me: The lack of draw would be easily forgiven if it wasnít competing with all those other $5 cost cards. itís hard to have an essential component be this expensive and not even cycle.

Chris is me: Guildhall is actually really good when itís good. Itís just a matter of timing it, and also buying it on a board where you get a fair number of Treasures, which isnít an every game thing. But once you have it youíll notice your economy just accelerating in a way you didnít initially expect, much like Spices.

Chris is me: Megaturns that take two turns to actually work are still pretty awkward. Merchant Guild is held back by its speed more than anything; it takes time to build into and it doesnít really give immediate returns on the way up. But I mean as long as the card says +Buy on it, it canít be that bad, right?

tracer: Merchant Guild is one of the terminals that youíll try really hard to make an engine work for. It should be higher on this list for the amount it warps games.

tracer: Council Room tends to be one of the more consistently underrated cards on this list due to the fear of drawing the opponent cards. A large amount of draw with a +buy is fantastic, with the drawback something to be careful about in non-mirrors but not something that should make you shy away from the card.

Possession - Action - Attack Trash this. If you do, you control the player to your left on their next turn.(You can see all cards they see, and you make all decisions for them.)

Based off of Mindslaver from MTG. Aside from the fact it's an attack that only hurts one opponent, this still seems like it could be an interesting though broken card.

Without any support at all, in a 2 player game, it could be read as "each other player gains a curse. Take an extra turn after this". The problem comes with trashers and +buy. Opponent basically gains a Curse per +buy that can be gotten on their turn. When Curses are gone, it's a Copper/Estate junker instead. But with trashers, it's the worst. Definitely swingy depending on what you can do with their turn, but the ability to trash whatever you can is way too good.

Worth noting that Donate doesn't work; the trashing happens after the turn when they are in control again. Though you can force on them.

We have a whole thread for Capitalism combos, but I'm especially interested in this one... my instinct says that this will be dominating in most games with both of these cards. First off because playing multiple Pirate Ships without needing village support is good. But especially because you can trash your opponent's Pirate Ships with yours. As well as any other virtual coin they have... and Virtual Coin is generally strongest in Pirate Ship games.

So it seems like these games will play out a lot like Knights... except that you don't lose your Pirate Ships when they hit other Pirate Ships! So one player will always have at least one remaining at the end. Will these games just be a race to get the most Pirate Ships, and then hope that you hit your opponent's Pirate Ships more than they hit yours?

There's still some interesting questions of when do you buy Capitalism... probably with your very first , but could it be better to wait until Pirate Ships are gone?

I just randomly came across this item on BGG. From what I can tell, it's Dutch. I've seen discussion about Dutch Dominion around here, but no mention of this product (except in one thread that's written all in Dutch).

So... what exactly is this? It says it's an "introductory" version of Dominion; with only 16 different cards and 8 copies of each.

I'm curious about this. Which cards does it come with? Are there any rules changes; other than supplies having 8 copies instead of 10? Does it play 3-4 players? Why does this exist? Regular based Dominion is plenty simple enough; and if you want a simple-as-possible experience, you can choose simpler cards to use; choose not to use Witch or Moat if you don't want Curses and reactions.

Complaining about games where there's no defining rule on whose turn it is to act reminded me of a game I learned last week, The Mind.

The Mind is completely about having no rule on when you can act; and I love it.

From the people who made The Game; basically everyone has a hand of cards, from a deck of cards numbered 1-100. The object is to play all cards from all hands in order, from lowest to highest, without any communication at all.

So when you think you have the next-lowest card, you play it. The whole game becomes about getting a feel for if you have waited long enough that you can be pretty sure that if a partner had a lower card, they would have played it by now. It's a lot of fun.

Reminds me of the really neat blue eyes / brown eyes island logic problem; where suddenly after 50 days every brown-eyed person will leave the island, because each brown-eyed person can deduce that if they had blue eyes instead, then the 49 brown-eyed people that they can see would have left on the 49th day.

The other players were someone who plays a lot but not online / competitively; someone who played a good bit I think, but didnít know anything about Nocturne; someone who had played a few games of Dominion before but needed reminding of even the basic rules; and myself.

Anyway, I got off to a slow start; having got a $3 and a $3 because of Cursed Gold, instead of a $4. Eventually got 2 Pookas and was able to trash down. Lots of Hexes flying around. I was starting to put together a pretty good engine with both Village types; Werewolfs, a Druid, 2 Guardians for 1 per turn, a Necromancer, and a couple Skulks.

The problem was, by the time I was really doing anything good, 2 of the other players had bought several Provinces and started on Duchies, with the third having some as well. There were 4 left when I got my thing to be reliable, and even then it wasnít fully reliable. So buying a Province was just bad for me, but I also had a really strong deck in terms of Hexing... and with my opponents having not trashed down; they couldnít do much of anything.

So we went around like this for several rounds... they would buy low-level VP when they could; I would hex them a bunch if they hadnít gotten a Guardian out, and I had no actual chance of winning at all. So... what should I have done? Although it was fun, I felt bad about the way I was playing... basically dragging the game on a bunch by just slowing them all down a whole bunch without actually increasing my chances of winning. Should I have just started buying Provinces even though it would eventually help end the game with my own loss? The game ended up taking a really long time, and most of it was due to me.

I'm almost sure this was already answered, but I can't find the thread.

What happens if you play a Crown A during your buy phase, choosing to play Crown B twice, choosing Horn of Plenty for the first time; choosing to gain a Villa with it?

So you play Horn of Plenty a second time now; but are you already back in your action phase now? So when you play Crown B for the second time, you now choose an action to play twice? Or, has Crown B already locked into the idea that it's being played during your buy phase?

So I was wondering... what's the actual purpose of the Dominion FAQ subforum? Looking through the existing threads, it seems like most of them would properly belong in the Rules Questions subforum. A few other threads, like the currently active "Maximum Possible VP?", are actually asking questions that get frequently asked... but even so the thread really would make perfect sense in Dominion General Discussion. Or also possibly in Puzzles and Challenges.

When I think of a FAQ, I think of a fixed list of Questions and Answers, designed to give new users a place to look before posting a thread asking a question that they have. For it to work that way, it would have to be a board that only a few people like moderators can post in / edit.

Anyway, just some thoughts, because the way it is currently set up makes it a bit confusing to know what sort of content to expect when going to that subforum.

Dicht dran - No English publishing; it's a light quick card game kind of like 6 nimmt but with a more interesting risk management aspect.

Kingdomino - Great light game with some interesting strategy.

Merlin - Feld's newest game, co-designed with Michael Rieneck. It's lighter than most Feld, but still deep enough. Still point salad like. On my wish list.

T.I.M.E Stories, Under the Mask - Different feel that the base game. More about mystery and figuring out who's who than direct puzzles and cryptic clues to decipher. At least for most of it. Sadly I didn't get to finish it; we decided after 2 runs to come back and finish the next day... and then the next day became the day after that until there was more more chance to get to it. Now I need to figure out what I want to do with it; if I just play it again from the beginning some time, or try to finish where I left off (by myself; it would have to be).

Time's Up! - One of the few party games I'll play. It has a neat aspect of re-using previous clues and remembering what options are still out there.

Code Names - You all know this one.

The Oracle of Delphi - Feld's game from last year; no victory points at all! Still as good as I remember it; hopefully I'll get it soon.

The Castles of Burgundy; The Dice Game - New light spinoff of Castles. A lot simpler than last year's Castles The Card Game. It was ok, but probably too Yahtzee-like.

Temporum - I was glad/surprised to find out that they DID have the expansion; even though it wasn't listed. Just thought this once, but both people loved it and one ordered a copy right away. Played 2 games.

Tem-Purr-A - I reluctantly agreed to play this with my friends; I figured it would be just another Exploding Kittens or what-not. Something that obviously only exists because someone thought the theme would be funny/cute. Well it was an amazing surprise hit! It's like No Thanks! and Fuji Flush; with a press-your-luck element. Played it several times. It clearly has flaws, but it was a lot of fun every game. Bought it for $10.

Dominion; Nocturne - See other thread.

Photosynthesis - One of the most popular games there. Each player is a difference species of tree, fighting for limited sunlight to take over the forest. It was... ok. It actually really seemed like something that should have just been included in Pyramid Arcade (Icehouse pieces). Most of the components were basically just really pretty pyramids. The game needed something to prevent the exponential explosion of a player who gets an early lead; as well as a complete shutdown for a player who makes an early mistake.

Majesty for the Realm - Another pretty light game; it's like the set collection of Machi Koro without the random luck of the dice. Really good.

Russian Railroads - Sadly without German Railroads. Still my favorite worker placement game I think.

Who Should We Eat? - This is a game that clearly only exists because of the theme. It has an interesting idea where players can choose to work together, or betray one another and make it a versus game. The problem is that the balancing seems to make it so that you can't possibly win without killing each other. It was just frustrating mostly.

Queendomino - New follow up to Kingdomino. It adds a lot of new strategy / depth. Seems like it could have been just an expansion to Kingdomino; but I don't know how I would have felt about an expansion to a really light game that makes it that much deeper. You can combine the sets for more players; didn't try that.

The Castles of Burgundy - Classic Feld. Game took way too long due to most players being overly analytical (myself included), but it was a great close game.

Exit; The Pharaoh's Tomb - This was amazing. It's an escape-the-room puzzle in a box. Designed for one-time use; you pay $12 or so for a couple hours of entertainment for 4 or so people. I was really impressed with the types of puzzles they came up with. We were able to solve all but the first and the last one without any hints. A few puzzles felt too easy, but the game as a whole did not. I plan to get a few more of the sets. They have 6 now; more coming next year. A friend said he liked Unlock! even more, so I'll have to try that.

Sheriff of Nottingham - Meh, not for me. Very basic bluffing game. Just B.S. with a couple extra components.

Amerigo - Finally learned this! One of the only games I've ever bought without playing first; I can finally play my copy. A pretty simple Feld game that uses an awesome cube tower. It was good.

Lovecraft Letter - Another game that literally only exists because of the theme. It actually does add a fair amount to Love Letter though. But I think I prefer the more simple version for a game like Love Letter.

Pix - Like Pictionary, but with magnetic pixel art. It's good for a party game.

Tokaido - Simple set collection game; played it before. I'll play it again, but not in a hurry to buy it.

Ice Cool - Dexterity game where you flick little penguins around a house. Not much else to say about that.

Tichu - Always good. Also played Suicide Teacher, a variant where both teams must make a Tichu call every hand! If your partner has already played and didn't call, you automatically call. It's not as stupid as it sounds actually. It adds a lot of interesting decisions with forcing you to get better at evaluating your hand. Because now, even if you don't have a Tichu hand, you need to call if you think your hand is better than your partner's hand. Obviously, it would take longer to play to 1000 with this rule.

Johann Sebastian Joust - This counts as a board game, right? Well, it gets played at every board game con I go to. It's amazing. If you don't know, it's a PS3/PS4 game that uses the motion controllers. If your controller moves too much, you're out. The faster the music is playing, the faster you are allowed to move without getting out. That's it. Everything else is just doing whatever it takes to force other players out without getting out yourself. Played this for 2 hours; great exercise. Also, if you think "oh, I've seen people play that before"... you probably haven't seen it played the way some people were playing it... with the players literally giving other players piggy back rides to simulate being on a horse.

Darn online version making it so that me getting to play Nocturne at bgg.con is much less of a big deal!

The game was so new that it wasn't available in the library until part of the way through the con. I was really glad to see that they got a copy.

Anyway, so I played a three player game with a couple friends who don't play very much Dominion at all. Using all Nocturne cards so that I could see as much new stuff as possible. Our Kingdom:

I opened Monastery and Necromancer to trash early. Eventually, built a fun thing that used Necromancer to play Tragic Hero from the Trash, giving +3 cards, +1 buy, gain a Gold every turn. With the help of 2 Ghost Towns each turn to make sure I could play everything. I also had a Bard and a Conclave in there somewhere. And a Shepherd once I had several Provinces. It was a pretty reliable Province + something every turn engine.

Got some help from an opponent who played a lot of Sacred Groves. One guy bought a Vampire but it only got used once.

Both players just resigned after it was clear I was simply buying a Province every turn; the game was no longer fun for them.

So what I learned....

- Even though I knew nothing about any individual card's strength; being a good Dominion player still carried a lot of weight in being good at Nocturne.

- Monastery seems really good. I don't think I ever trashed 2 cards in a turn with it, but the fact that it's non-terminal, and can trash Coppers from play, is super nice.

- This is obvious, but in a reliable engine, 2 Ghost Towns are a Hireling that also gives an extra action each turn. That's really good.

We have interesting moments, uninteresting moments, semi-interesting moments... but I don't see a thread for just complaining about bad luck.

Anyway, I had this come up yesterday in a IRL 2 player game:

I opened Silver/Potion so I could get a jump on Scrying Pool. My opponent opened Silver/Monument. Turn 3 was and no , so I bought a Monument. Turn 4... and no . Knowing my Potion had missed the reshuffle, I bought a second Potion.

Turn 5... Potion, Potion, Copper, Shelter, Shelter.

Although my opponent (who had only played fewer than a dozen games of Dominion before) played great with buying up most of the Cities and Monuments; I managed to pull off a win with Scrying Pools anyway.

So when I'm unable to play Breath of the Wild because my wife is busy, I've found a new Zelda game to occupy my time... A Link to the Past Randomizer. This is a rom hack (actually a web-based software that hacks a rom you provide it) that randomizes the locations of all 200-some items that you get in the game from chests, bosses, NPCs, and things just sitting there in secret caves and such.

So while you normally start in your house and open a chest to get the lantern immediately, that chest could have anything, such as a Hookshot, Moon Pearl, or most likely just some rupees (nearly a quarter of all chest items in the game are just rupees).

So basically you have a lot of the skill and fun of regular Zelda 3, combined with a lot more puzzle solving, feeling a lot like an escape-the-room puzzle. You have to know where you can go without any items to check chests; then once you get something like the hammer, you have to know what new locations that opened up for you to check. Ultimately you need to get all 7 crystals to get in Gannon's tower and beat the game like normal.

The programming uses logic to ensure that it will never be impossible to beat the game (the hammer can't be in a chest that requires the hammer to get to).

If you're a fan of A Link to the Past, I highly recommend it. I've played through about 8 times now. My best time is 3:01. Speed runners who play the game in race formats competitively take about 1:30.

Poacher: , the closest thing we'll see to the Peddler, and the card that means we won't ever see a Peddler. Minor drawback in some games, sometimes no drawback at all. In some games the drawback could hurt a bunch.

Junk Dealer: , you get to (have to) trash a card from your hand when you play it. Doesn't feel like a Peddler because it plays much more like a cantrip trasher with a coin tacked on than a cantrip coin with trashing tacked on. But still clearly fits the formula.

Baker: , benefit of getting a coin token instead of a coin, which ranges from a little better to much better.

Emporium: , is often worth 2 when you gain it, but you have to clear out the top half of the pile before you can gain them.

Settlers: , with the drawback that it only works when you have a Copper in your discard pile. Big drawback if you can trash your Coppers.

Caravan Guard: , drawback of being a Duration, unless you use its reaction, in which case it's a normal Peddler.

Chariot Race: , only works if the card you draw is more expensive than your left-hand opponent's top card. But when it works, it's also a .

Ironmonger: , only a Peddler when your top card is a treasure. But always gives you something, and it's even better than a Peddler when your top card is a treasure you don't want, like a Copper.

Honorable mentions (these were in my original list, but I agree with those who said that they didn't really feel like Peddler variants):

City: , only level 3 Cities give you that full benefit, and they give you much more, too.

Grand Market: , gives an extra buy and an extra coin; cost is more than 6 in terms of ease of purchase.

Conspirator (Thanks rinkworks): , only gives the full bonus after 2 other actions, but the bonus gives an extra coin.

Mystic: , if Conspirator is an honorable mention, so is this. When it works, it's an activated Conspirator. Otherwise, it's just a Silver.

Venture: , has a virtual +1 action as a result of being a treasure, and its +1 card is always a treasure.

And interesting to note that with Adventures tokens, there's a whole bunch of cards that you can turn into Peddler+ cards; just add the + token to any cantrip, or add the +1 card token to cards like Lighthouse.

So 10 new ones (and 2 honorable mentions) since last time! That's a lot... only 7 of them throughout the first 7 sets, and now 10 new ones from just 4 new sets (and second edition sets).